Chapter 8
by jmsutherland
Summary: Moo surprises everyone at her birthday.


Page **13** of **13**

**Chapter VIII**

As the weeks went on Tiffany began to wonder more and more about the little girl she had taken under her roof. It was simply beyond her understanding why someone hadn't already adopted this child. Yes, she ate a lot; a scarcely believable amount –though that was slowing down a bit- without ever putting on any weight, but that was surely because she was never still. Actually, she was, when she knew she was supposed to be, like at the table or when they were out visiting. And she could be motionless for ages while looking at a butterfly that had landed on her arm. But Tiffany could see the effort she had to put in to sitting still. It would have exhausted a lesser person. No, the only time she was truly still was when she was asleep, and when she slept she did it so profoundly that when Tiffany had gone in to check on her one night, early on, she'd thought she was dead.

Everything she did she seemed to be able to do just more so. She didn't climb trees like a boy; she climbed them like a monkey -and there weren't many people in Lancre that even knew what a monkey was- she ran like a hare and swam like an eel. The tiny hands on the ends of her skinny arms had a grip like a vice. And she took in knowledge with even more relish that she took in bacon sandwiches. And, unlike with food, she never got full, ever.

Tiffany knew a little about a lot, and a lot about a little. Fortunately she also owned some books, as did Agnes, and Queen Magrat owned tons. And that was just as well because Moo never forgot anything. As far as she could guess, she might be able to teach Moo for another couple of years and that would be it. She'd have to start teaching her magic soon or start learning from her instead. Because she suspected that Moo might have been _borrowing._

It wasn't something that Tiffany did often, partly because of the effort required to get inside the head of another creature, but also the fear that she might never get back. Moo, however, seemed to literally be able to do it in her sleep. A lot of mornings Moo would tell Tiffany about her _dreams_, but the vividness with which she described: being in the forest at night, swimming under the water in the river or flying over the Ramtops made Tiffany fairly sure she's actually been there.

And there was another thing. It had been Agnes who had first mentioned it to her, but it was actually something she herself had noticed at their first meal together: Moo rang every last drop of pleasure out of absolutely everything she did. The girl rejoiced in running for no purpose other than doing so until her legs would no longer hold her up. And yet she could sit frozen for minutes on end just so she could examine the bugs that landed on her.

But what was most astonishing, at least for Tiffany and Agnes, was her relationship with other children. Nanny made them see it by getting Moo round for a birthday party. Nanny's extended-family was so huge that almost every other day was likely to be someone's birthday. The Oggs were a prolific clan, so now it wasn't just Nanny's grand-children, but also her great-grand-children who were blowing out their candles. At first Moo had just stood at the side of the room, in her bunches and her party-frock, looking awkward. Then one of Nanny's great-granddaughters, Esme, had come up to her, asked her name and then taken her hand and said they should get some cake. For the next three hours they'd watched her dance and play and eat sweetmeats with the other children; for all the Disc as though she was just a little, nine-year-old girl.

"She's an odd one, isn't she?" observed Agnes.

"You have no idea."

When they got home Tiffany had asked if she'd enjoy herself:

"It was the best time ever, miss."

Once again Tiffany didn't doubt her, because Moo never told a lie. In fact Moo never did anything wrong. At first Tiffany had wondered if it was because she was terrified she'd be thrown out if she did. So she'd asked her.

"Yes, miss," said Moo, ever honest.

"You think I might throw you out of the house if you're naughty!?" cried Tiffany, appalled.

"No, miss. But I think I should be a good girl, just in case."

That was Moo for you; she couldn't even lie about being devious. And then she made a friend.

Tiffany wasn't sure, but she thought that perhaps the last time Moo had had a friend she hadn't been walking and talking all that long. So, if she was going to have a new friend then the absolute worstest would be Margs.

Margs was another of Nanny's great-granddaughters and a trial to everyone who knew her. Apart from Nanny, of course, for whom no relation, younger than one of her own children, could possibly do any wrong. Not even Margs.

Margs and Moo were about the same age and about the same frame, for about the same reason, that's where the similarity ended. Whereas Moo could make herself sit still if she really had to, Margs would have to be tied down, or nailed.

All the bad-girl things Moo had spent her whole life being falsely accused of, and unjustly beaten for, Margs actually did. Agnes had once told Tiffany, though she wasn't sure how seriously, that she'd seen Margs standing at a wedding while her stockings spontaneously laddered and her plaits un-braided themselves before her eyes. She wasn't a boy in girls' clothing; she was a wild-animal in a torn dress.

And yet she got away with it, more often than not, because of her face. No one was prepared to believe that that face of perfect and beautiful innocence, sparkling with that utterly guileless smile, could possibly be responsible for: the broken vase; the little boy with the black-eye; the dead fish in the fire… Margs could look guiltless standing over a decapitated corpse with a hatchet in her hand.

They'd first met at one of the innumerable Ogg birthday parties and become friends at once. No one could have planned it better, though both Tiffany and Agnes suspected that Nanny had done precisely that.

Tiffany was more than happy. Of course she was worried, more or less all the time, as any parent –or anyone in a parent's place- would be, because Moo would go off for whole days with Margs and come back in scratches and bruises and sometimes cuts that were actually bleeding. But she'd clean the wounds on both of them; heal a bit, if necessary; feed them –Margs had a huge appetite, though not to be compared with Moo's- and send them on their way.

She did wonder what they got up to, sometimes, but she never asked Moo. Moo would simply have told her. On the other hand, she did once think of asking Margs, because she liked a good fantastical story now and then.

Once again it had been Nanny who had urged them on with the age thing. Moo wasn't sure how old she was and didn't know when her birthday was, so Nanny had decided that they should choose a birthday for her. They'd started to think about it.

"Twenty-second of Doon," Nanny announced.

"Mid-Year's Day," Agnes wondered.

"And why not?"

"It's a very important date, though," said Tiffany.

"So it is, my lovelies, so it is," agreed Nanny.

And so the Lovely Day was agreed between all three of them. And it was further agreed that her birthday party should be held at Nanny's cottage.

"Do you ever wonder," asked Agnes, as they went to fetch their brooms, "if we'll ever be consulted on these _unanimous_ decisions?"

"Oh, I'm sure she'll tell us if we will," said Tiffany.

When Agnes came into sight of the cottage she was appalled at the sight of her friend sitting on the grass, in the sunshine, wearing nothing but her nightdress. She was plaiting flowers.

"Tiffany Aching!" barked Agnes, in her best scolding voice.

"Oh, morning, Aggie," said Tiffany, throwing her a huge, beaming smile. Agnes felt a little lift in her stomach and had to fight back a smile of her own.

"What if it had been someone else and they'd seen you like this?" she demanded, not giving up so easily.

"Oh, I'd have heard them," laughed Tiffany, "just as I heard you when you turned into the lane and climbed over the stile."

"You did NOT know it was me."

"Well, it's true," Tiffany conceded, "that there may be more than one person who wears _Midnight Musk_, has a pebble in the heel of one of her shoes and says _botheration_ when she bangs her knee on the post, but the odds were definitely in my favour."

"Which heel?" demanded Agnes.

"The left," said Tiffany

"Ha! Wrong!"

"Well, it's a long way, and what with all these woodland sounds…"

Agnes did a quick check, as she sometimes got them mixed up, but it was definitely the right, so there!"

"Would you like a cup of tea?" asked Tiffany, getting up, "I have some chocolate biscuits, freshly made."

But of course Agnes had smelt them baking long before Tiffany had heard the pebble in her shoe.

"Well, only if you think I'm good enough," Agnes goaded.

Tiffany laughed again and it was as light and lovely as hearing leaves being rustled by a Summer breeze. It was a rare sound, but one of Agnes's favourites.

"Why don't you take your boots off?" asked Tiffany, heading indoors, "I'd forgotten how nice it was to feel the grass between my toes."

And so they sat in the sunshine and had tea and biscuits and made coronets out of flowers like the two little girls they had been not such an awfully long time before. But after a while Agnes felt she had to ask:

"Where's Moo?"

"I have no idea; off somewhere with Margs."

"Aren't you worried about her?"

"Not in the least."

"You know, you are one of the worst liars I have ever met?"

"At least I'm better than you."

This was undeniable. Agnes would blush whenever she told the tiniest of fibs. In fact, she would get so nervous about the prospect that she would sometimes fumble the words to such an extent that what came out was hardly a lie at all. At least not one that anyone would be able to recognise.

"At least I'm better than Moo."

"And bees are better at making honey than fish are," laughed Tiffany, and Agnes laughed along. For all they knew Moo might have been great at lying, it was just was just one of those things –like speaking Klatchian- that she'd simply never tried.

"How long have they been gone?"

"Since breakfast."

"What time was breakfast?"

"Dawn."

"So, they've been gone since about four o'clock this morning. What time is it now?"

"Just gone half-past ten."

"And when will they be back?"

"When they're cold, or hungry."

"And when do you think that will be?"

"Well, given all the early fruit that's around, Margs's general scavenging skills and the warmness of the nights: it could be a couple of weeks.

Agnes looked Tiffany straight in the eye, but if she was lying then she was doing it far better than she normally did.

"Are you joking!?"

"Well, maybe not weeks, but certainly days."

"Have they stayed out all night before?"

"Oh, yes, several times."

Agnes could hardly believe her ears. "And then what?"

"And then they come back with bruises and scratches and tales of wonderful adventures."

"You let Moo go and stay out all night, in the wild, having adventures!? With Margs, of all people!?"

"Margs isn't a bad girl."

"No," Agnes had to agree, "but she's a naughty girl."

"So is Moo."

"Oh, don't be ridiculous!"

"No, honestly. Yes, she always does as she's told. Tell her not to do something and she won't do it. Tell her not to repeat something she's done and she won't do it ever again. But she's too clever not to have worked out that some of the things she hasn't been told not to do are very similar to things she _has_ been told not to do. She's not sly; she's not devious; she's just…naughty. How else would you want her?"

"But Tiff, she's with Margs, they could be anywhere; it could be dangerous!"

"I'm sure it is. Often I don't ask."

"You can't be serious! You mean you're not interested?"

"Oh, I'm always interested; I'm always brimming over with curiosity, but sometimes I think it's just better that I don't know."

"I can't understand what you're saying!"

"Look," said Tiffany "two weeks ago they came back from wherever they'd been with Margs having to hold Moo up, as her legs were like jelly, she couldn't talk a word of sense, her eyes were all over the place and she had a lump the size of a duck's egg on her forehead.

"We bathed her together and put her to bed. Then we both stayed up all that night. Margs wouldn't leave her bedside, even when she was fast asleep on her stool. The next day Moo was a bit better and Margs kept trying to tell me what had happened, but I wouldn't let her. You know Margs, it would just have been a pack of lies anyway. I only let her tell stories when Moo's with her, because as soon as she starts inventing, Moo starts frowning and she stops.

"Anyway, by the second day Moo had recovered and they both wanted to tell me what had happened; and I forbade it. I told them it must be their secret and that they should tell no one else."

"What!?" said Agnes, incredulously, "why in the name of all the gods would you do that?"

"Because it was probably something stupidly dangerous, and I would have forbidden them to do it, or anything like it ever again. And Moo would have obeyed me, and thereby probably ruined the rest of her childhood. Margs of course would have completely ignored me and, no doubt, done the self-same thing again, but on her own. And because then there would have been no friend around to help her and take care of her, she'd probably have died."

"Well, it's a case," admitted Agnes, "though not a very convincing one. Has anyone ever told you that you think too much?"

"Everyone I've ever met, apart from you."

"Well, you can include me too now," Agnes said.

Tiffany laughed again, but this time it wasn't quite the little-girl laugh anymore.

"Right," she said, getting up, "they're on their way, so I'd better change while you finish off the coronets."

"Can you really hear them?" asked Agnes, straining her ears and pulling her shoes and stockings towards her.

"Oh, yes," said Tiffany, "but they're a good fifteen minutes away. And I wouldn't bother with the shoes; a witch should be able to feel the earth beneath her feet."

"Well, as long as I've got my pointy-hat on."

"Oh, don't be silly. Didn't Granny ever tell you? That's just for in front of men."

The girls duly turned up about a quarter of an hour later. Their faces, legs and arms were tanned, bruised and scratched. Their feet were filthy and the only semblance of order about the appearance of either of them was the fiercely tight braid hanging down each of their backs. However, in the laps of each of their torn dresses they carried a good collection of what the people of Lancre called _greeners_, the small, sweet delicious plum that grew wild for a month every Summer. Agnes clapped in delight at the sight of them. The girls, of course. Of course, the girls. But those plums really were sweet.

Tiffany appeared at the door, all in black and with her previously flowing hair looking as if it had been nailed to her head; but no hat and still nothing on her feet. She was carrying a plate for cold meats and another of cheeses. These farmers could be so generous sometimes.

"Agnes, would you get the bread, and girls, wash your hands before we have lunch.

And so they passed a pleasant hour or so, eating and drinking things made or picked within an hour's walk of where they sat, and talked of all the things that that happened within an hour's walk of where they sat. The story of the girls' day was told, mostly by Margs, and mostly accurately, thanks to Moo. The girls drank water with a little elderflower cordial in it, while the witches drank something that that nice young farmer Giles made from elderberries.

At the end of lunch there really wasn't much to clear up so Tiffany suggested that they girls go for a nap as they both looked totally exhausted, and off they trooped.

"Are you drunks?" she asked Agnes.

"Oooh, yesss. Do you think an'body noticed?"

"Well, I didn't," Tiffany assured her, "but I can't feel my toes. Can you feel my toes?"

"I don't know, where are they? What did you give me to drink, you wicked witch?"

"Oh, there are my toes; they're on ends of my feets."

"Tiff, what did we drink?!" laughed Agnes.

"Dunno, thought was eld'berry wine; bit of water, where's the harm?"

"Can you see stars?"

"S'noon-ish, can see stars for the Sun."

"I can see stars, and tweety-birds, and…dwarfs!"

Somewhere in her addled brain Tiffany found a grip and decided to get it, so she gripped Agnes:

"Aggies, magick!"

Agnes nodded, they held each other's hand and pulled and whatever it was that had been messing with their minds was yanked out, almost painfully.

"Wow," said Agnes, "pretty good stuff."

"Indeed," agreed Tiffany, "I think I may have to have a word with farmer Giles of Ham.


End file.
